Welcome to the world Lucia Grace

My little love bug surprised us with a sooner-than-expected entrance. As I am very thankful for a whole extra week with her — here’s our slightly comical, slightly frustrating, crazy, amazing birth.

So while Justin is in the military and they work all hours of the day, luckily he had been able to come to almost every single one of our prenatal appointments. Monday, for whatever number of reasons, he was not able to come with me. I wasn’t worried about it, there was no sign of LG making her way into the world yet. But as I got closer to my OB’s office I started feeling really nervous for no apparent reason. I had a million and one thoughts in my head … basically coming down to “I’m going to get there and be told I’m having this baby today”. Close friends and my logical brain told me this wasn’t practical: No contractions, no dilation, no dropping… nada.

Well, Makenzie, your intuition was correct. I get to my appointment and my heart rate was high, high enough to make the nurse’s eyes look slightly worried. She took it again, still high. I waited 20 minutes, got called back into the room, and another nurse took it… guess what … still high. This went on for about 15 minutes until my midwife came in. She asked some questions, monitored my heart rate, and made the decision for me to go to labor and delivery to get a blood test to see what was going on. Of course, Justin’s not here when I need him. Marine. Corps. That is all I have to say.

So I get to L&D, blood test wasn’t giving good results. So starting at 5:30pm I was admitted for a 24 hour urine test. Fast forward to 8:30 pm Tuesday night, after nerves, tears, and 3 hours of waiting for the results for my pee…. my midwife comes in and asks us if we’re ready to have a baby!

Ready or not, Miss Lucia Grace was going to make her grand entrance within the next 48 hours. We made the phones calls to our family and my mom book a flight for the next morning!

We got all set up in our delivery room (which happened to be the same room that my best friend delivered her little boy in) and mentally prepared to have a baby. My midwife finally went home, which I was a little nervous about because she had been with me since day 1, but I ended up with another amazing doctor!

They inserted a pill next to my cervix to start softening and dilation around 10:30pm, another at 2:30am, and another at 7:30am along with a foley bulb because I was finally dilated to *barely* 1cm. Wooh! That stayed in until about 10:30am, when it came out I was at a 4! Oh gosh, I thought, this is going fast, I’m going to have a Valentine’s Day baby! My mom was going to land at 1pm and I was worried she was going to miss it. I was wrong, so very wrong. The doctor came in and broke my water around 12 and then the contractions came in like a wrecking ball… or so I thought. Mom got to the hospital around 1:30pm, Justin went to grab some food, and we waited. 3:30 rolls around, still 4 cm. So they started pitocin, lord save me.

Stronger contractions came around, a nurse change over happened (my nurses were ALL amazing), and did I mention my contractions got stronger? Finally around 6:30, they started taking my breath completely away. They came and checked me again… I was barely at 5cm. I cried. So I got in the shower on a ball, to try to get things rolling, for about 30 minutes. Then it happened — FOLIAGE. I tried for an unmedicated birth, but Justin and I decided on a safe word: foliage. Within 20 minutes my life was changed, I could have kissed that anesthesiologist.

Life was good again, we napped, got woken up, poked and prodded, napped, talked. Then finally 11:30pm, I was at an 8. No Valentine’s baby for me, let’s take another nap.

I woke up at 3am to my wonderful nurse coming into check and see my progress… her eyes widened. “Her Head is right here” WHAT?! Are you for real? Is it finally time? Oh yeah, “you’re at a 10, her head is right here, let’s have a baby!” Yes! Let’s go. Justin’s face was priceless, being woken up out of a deep sleep to me telling him its time to push.

I guess LG was ready to say hi because less than 25 minutes, a few complications, some crazy birthing positions, and one amazingly calm doctor, my sweet baby took her first breath.